Daily Archives: July 8, 2011

Bootsie Grace Frederick, 75, of Sanderson, died July 4 at the Acosta Rua Center for Caring in Jacksonville. Mrs. Frederick was born in White Springs and resided in Baker County for the past 30 years. She was the daughter of the late Ernest Daniel and Zeffie Johnson Grace.

Bootsie graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville, was a homemaker most of her life and enjoyed cooking, sewing and gardening. She loved gathering with family and friends for social teas. She worked along side her husband in the Labor of Love Ministry until his death in 2006. She also owned a small janitorial business.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 54 years, Rev. Henry Durell “Pop” Frederick; sons Clint Frederick and Charles Frederick. She was a loving and dedicated wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt and friend.

The funeral service will be conducted Thursday, July 7 at 2:00 pm in the Macclenny First Baptist Church with the Rev. Ricky Baldwin officiating. Interment will follow in the Cedar Creek Cemetery. The family will receive friends Wednesday, July 6, from 6:00-8:00 pm at Guerry Funeral Home in Macclenny.

The forecast called for rain, but there was another reason a young woman protesting Governor Rick Scott during his visit to the Vinoy Resort in St. Petersburg July 1 had on pink galoshes — they matched her “Pink Slip Rick” T-shirt.

The governor delivered a statement in the hotel’s banquet hall to attendees of the Florida Press Association’s annual convention, mostly reporters, editors and publishers.

He touted the 70,000-plus jobs the state’s added since he was sworn into office this year and said nothing of the 1300 jobs eliminated from the state’s payroll that day, including 70 or more at Northeast Florida State Hospital.

Then he took questions from the audience, and as Governor Scott does so often, failed to answer them.

For instance, he was asked about his office’s policy of responding to public records requests as slowly and expensively as the law allows, a stark contrast with his campaign pledge to increase transparency in state government. The governor answered by saying he plans to make more records available online.

The Baker County school district kept its overall B grade and the middle school remains an A school, according to school and district grades released by the Florida Department of Education June 30.

Keller Intermediate, however, fell two letter grades to become a D school for the first time since 2001-02.

The decline came in part because not enough low-performing students made reading gains on the 2011 Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT, administered last spring.

“Keller does a lot of good things academically … But there’s a select population that doesn’t perform well,” explained the school district’s director of accountability and testing, Susan Voorhees.

The state requires that at least 50 percent of students scoring in the bottom 25 percent in reading and math make gains within two year’s time. Schools failing to meet the requirement are penalized one letter grade.

This year 42 percent of the low-performing students at Keller made gains in reading and 54 percent made gains in math. Last year 46 percent showed reading gains and 56 percent showed math gains.

“It’s not an easy thing to take,” said Ms. Voorhees. “You would like to get the grade that you earned.”